


take these broken wings (and learn to fly)

by AceQueenKing



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Rebirth, Second Chances, Smuggling, background canon relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Persephone lets the songbird escape her cage.
Relationships: Eurydice & Persephone (Hadestown), Hermes & Persephone (Hadestown)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	take these broken wings (and learn to fly)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [2Nienna2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Nienna2/gifts).



Persephone turns her head, turns her head right. Checks out her husband's sorry, sorry train. Hades himself would brag that the engine is as mighty and strong as the man himself. But like the man himself, his precious train's got more than a few nicks here or there: paint that's a bit thin, the seats whose padding has long since worn away. Normally, she’d throw such in his face, that he ain’t taking care of himself or his property. In some of their better years, she'd spend a little time fussing on the station's platform, make sure it's a memorable squall so he misses her but not too much, so he storms off now but makes sure the make-up in the spring comes all the sweeter.

But this year, well, she’s occupied. 

Persephone looks to the left, to the right once again. Hades and her have given their goodbyes at his office, and while in many years she may resent himself's tendency not to come to the station, this year and perhaps only this year, she's thankful for it.

By the time he finds out what she's done, he'll be far enough away that she won't have to worry about it for six months. Distance has a lot of drawbacks, but a few lil’ perks, too.

She gathers up her larger-than-usual bag. Hermes sees that and, judging by the large, comical brows, assumes she was doubling up her smuggling. Takes a lot of contraband to keep the workers of Hadestown toiling. ‘Nother thing her husband don’t keep up with much.

But while what Persephone holds is in fact smuggled, it’s a more dangerous cargo than some liquor bottles to refill. Heavier too, though the girl don't weigh nearly what she should, herself having starved so often in her young life.

Persephone steps onto the train. Goes to her usual seat, tucks the precious cargo under her chair. It'll be uncomfortable for the girl, but uncomfortable is the least of her worries if Persephone springs her too fast. Persephone doesn't know how Hades will react, but she knows that distance is their friend, that Hades’ wrath at her thumbing her nose at him will be worse here, in his own lands, than it will be if he learns of her duplicity later.

The whistle blows; the train departs. Her hands grip one another tight, seeking a comfort she can't quite give herself. Waits for five minutes of unbearable stillness as his train starts up, the wheels slowly turning, an eternity as the explosions of his machine begin to spark. Persephone shivers, tightness in her chest. She can't believe she's doing this. She takes a long drink from her flask, sighs in relief as the train gets faster and faster as it chugs upstairs. Persephone turns her mind's eye toward the girl as they start to rise through the strata of stone and steel. Eurydice, she mouths the girl's name, a not-quite prayer; Persephone hopes she's okay. She won't open that suitcase until such time as she knows they are out of his control; he can see everything down here, she don't doubt that. Best to let his eye pass, so he don’t see this betrayal. Betrayal's like whiskey, Persephone figures: goes down like fire no matter what, but it's a lot smoother to swallow if it's been aged a bit. She hopes he will take this so. 

Because it's a betrayal to him, this, unquestionably herself thumbing her nose at the king, but it's still something worth doing. Something right to do. The girl didn't fail; the boy did. Far as Persephone is concerned, the girl's passed the test. Having been screwed over by her own husband's doubt more times than she is frankly comfortable recounting in her life, Persephone is more than willing to allow bygones to be bygones.

And fact is, he has so many of his little worker-bees that she think she won't notice that one of 'ems missing, especially one such as the girl. Persephone knows her husband better than anyone else. He won’t view Eurydice as a trophy; rather, a shameful reminder that he should not be of such mind as to play such horrible games of hearts. 

Be easier on him if he don't see that reminder of their failings, she knows. Easier on her, too.

And even if he don’t appreciate her pulling the girl up top, even if her husband comes down on Persephone like a ton of bricks, she thinks, it will be worth it. Orpheus has proven no fire-storm can rage unquenched forever. She thinks even if he comes down on her, he'll let the girl emerge unscathed. Once they're back up-top and the girl is back to being alive in the world, well, Mr. Hades will bide his time. He'll win in the end, and that ought to be enough to let him take the long-term victory, not risk interfering for some short term gains. Not worth the hassle. He's the god and king of all down below, but up-top goes by different rules, shares more rulers.

Herself among them, and her vote obvious.

They ride in uneasy and uncomfortable silence, her and the girl. The girl is doing a good job not moving; box is as quiet as contraband itself. Hadestown and Hades proper passing by in a blink. Lot faster to leave this way than the walk; girl said the boy was at the very final steps out when he turned. How long had it taken them? Persephone had been upstairs when the boy turned. Been spared that agonizing sight, though she knows her husband saw, saw and winced when the boy failed in his last manic grasp. Poured himself a drink to soothe his conscience, dialed his wife to tell her – nothing in particular. 

But for Orpheus and Eurydice – well. The consequences were higher. Persephone understands why the boy failed. It must have been days, themselves walkin’ up through this walk. Long time to take to lose their courage. But Persephone, who has been fetched down by a faithless man many a time, understands how that darkness plays on the mind better than most. Understands, too, how it feels when a woman loses everything just when her faith is running high.

Hades, being himself, had promptly assigned the girl to the mines when she'd returned, Persephone had learned. Deep and dark, a shameful place for a secret he never wanted to examine again.

And now, well, Persephone'd do him the favor of makin’ sure he won’t see her for a long, long time, until such a sight has lost its sharpness.

Persephone sighs; the tracks careen. Just a few more minutes. She wants to signal this to Eurydice in some way, but she doesn't dare. Instead, she closes her eyes, waits, still, until she feels a bit of sunlight shining down on her.

The shaft of light explodes into the car with a muggy burst of sweet, summer-quick air, and Persephone feels her ancient bones crack as she shifts from still-as-a-statue matron to her more youthful springtime-self. A sweep of her hand down her dress and she is in green; she tucks the bonnet in her handbag and lets her wild hair run free and untamed, the way it was meant to.

And in one click flick of her hand, she opens her heavy suitcase. And there is the girl.

Eurydice squints up at the sunlight, looking less a lost lamb reborn than a girl recovering from a bender. Persephone, having been both, often at the same time, kneels down, touches the girl's hand.

"We up...?" The girl says, her voice scratchy. Persephone strokes her hand with as much gentleness as she can provide and nods.

"Yeah, you're up." She taps her arm, tries to get behind Eurydice, get her up into a sitting position. She'll have to get back in there in a few hours, have to let Persephone drag her off the train, but Persephone isn't going to make her spend all that time curled up like that.

"He didn't bust us...?" There's real fear in her eyes, real genuine fear, and Persephone's belly twists with guilt. Eurydice scrambles away from her, scooting back, and Persephone knows Hades has given Eurydice a bit of fear for her, for gods altogether.

"No," she says; she does not say _not yet_ but the truth is that that is always the unwritten possibility. She hopes such ain't likely to happen. Eurydice nods, wary; relaxes only when her back hits the door.

"It's locked," Persephone says, tries to put the girl at ease. Eurydice nods. Persephone nods too, uncertain how to continue the conversation. The history between them is a tragic one; easier left unspoken, and so they do.

Eurydice puts her hands over her face, rocking back and forth for a good five minutes. Persephone knows the feeling; the sight of the sky, after so long underground, is blinding. "You'll get used to the light," she offers. She fishes in her dress, pulls out her flask. "Take a hit, girlie. This'll set you right."

Eurydice nods, and Persephone tosses it to her, not wanting her to get skittish at the thought of Persephone getting closer. Eurydice takes a long pull, then tosses it back to her. "Thanks," she says, quiet.

Now the thing is, the right contemptible thing is, is that Eurydice and Persephone are not the best of friends. Persephone was up-top by the time the girl was doomed for the second time, and it had taken four of her six months to even find the girl down in the mines, and the latter two to come up with a plan to get her out.

"I'm glad..." Eurydice clears her throat. "Thanks for helpin' me."

Persephone nods; regal and poised. That queenly mask slides down, her usual approach to discomfort: her mother was well known for her ability to freeze the world and Persephone herself has some of that ice in her blood. When she's uncomfortable, easier to push people away. But the girl, who has suffered his coldness as much as herself, is owed more than that.

"You okay?" Persephone asks.

"Yeah." Eurydice watches the windows, watches green and verdant land passing in the blink of an eye, waters that flow with a sweetness unlike anything down in the world below. "First time I've been alright in a long time, truth be told."

Persephone relaxes, smiles. She scoots a couple of inches closer to Eurydice, who does not scoot away.

"You'll be alright," Persephone promises, a promise that she cannot guarantee, not any more than anyone else. But Eurydice needs to hear it, so Persephone says it. 

"Thanks," Eurydice says. Her voice is light. "Feel like I could sing a song." Persephone says nothing, but when Eurydice starts humming a bit of that boy's song, well, Persephone hums along, too. Simple song. Ain't like it has lyrics.

But then, it's ain't like it ever needed them. Some things are just simple and true. 

Maybe it's the song that gives her a warmth to her cheeks, maybe it’s the sun, maybe it's helping the girl—maybe it's that this winter didn't go so bad, maybe it's that they're all moving on. Maybe it doesn't matter, either. Persephone scoots the full way over to the girl, grabs her hand.

"You going to find him?" She asks. "Your musician?"

Eurydice looks away, the look of a woman who is ashamed of a fault that is not hers, the face of a woman whose been hurt and isn't sure if she has the capacity to be hurt again. "Ain't got to,” Persephone says.

"Ain't sure." Eurydice's voice is soft and sweet, but there’s a steel bar underneath, made by a year of back-breaking labor. "But I know wherever I go, I'll be free as a honeybee. Won't bargain off my time. Not for anyone."

"Glad of that," Persephone says; once burned, twice shy. She understands that well enough herself. "Glad of that."

In time, she thinks, herself and Eurydice could be friends. But time ain't something that the world has afforded women like them. Suppose that's the tragedy of a songbird among her flower-bed; flowers get to hear a bit of a songbird’s song, but only for a moment. Only for a moment. "Don't stop singing, songbird," she says, her voice sounding even to her own ear as if vines have lodged nettles in her throat. "Listen to me, don't stop singing for no one. Any man who wants to own your voice, tell you not to use it for anyone but him—you tell him to get stuffed."

She is trying to tell the girl — something. She is trying to tell the girl — everything. Persephone knows that the girl ain't got time to absorb all the lessons that an ancient goddess could teach her.

“You just keep flying, songbird." She looks out the window, the songbird, the sunlight giving Eurydice's cheeks color, and giving her eyes some sparkle. She's past Mr. Hades' control now, and she wonders if her husband feels the one-down to his tallies, if he's started to be driven mad by the algorithm that rings false, the numbers off just by one. Music and mathematics, she knows, are closer in subject matter than one might guess; her husband is not a poet but he is of a sort of musician all his own.

He will have to get used to the adjustment. This is what is right.

"Keep on flying," she says. "By night or by day. If the days grow too cold, you call on Mr. Hermes; he's the god of travelers. He'll help you." She'd say to call upon herself, but when the world is cold, it is so because of her absence, and she does not want to see Miss Eurydice down in the down below, not until Miss Eurydice is of an age where she no longer draws breath, when she can no longer fly. Being a mortal, Persephone knows Eurydice’s wings getting cut are an inevitability, but let it be by the entropy of time, which ends all things. Let it not be by her husband’s overbearing hand.

"And in the summertime, if you need me, you whisper a prayer.” She will provide. Normally Persephone does not offer much to the mortals. Such is not within her character as of late, Persephone's gifts given only in drunken flings of her outstretched hands, but for Eurydice, and for all the other mortals she's wronged and he's wronged, well, suppose she ought to offer.

"I got it," Miss Eurydice says. Bold as the lark, she gets up from their position down on the floor, leans against one of the windows in her husband's old jalopy. Persephone watches the sun wave through the girl's pretty black hair. "I'll not see you," Eurydice says, quiet, but the wind carries, and Persephone hears every word mortals fling to her on the wind's voice. It is both a blessing and a curse. "Not for a long time."

"That saddens me," Persephone says, and says true. "But it makes me happy, too, to know..." She does not say, but she thinks the girl knows: she would rather the girl be free, free to live as she wishes. After a moment, Eurydice nods.

"Was thinking of going to—" Eurydice starts, and Persephone cuts her off with a hand.

"Don't tell me." Telling her is like telling her husband; they have no secrets, in the end. They are plants with roots so deeply bound that they cannot, as such, unwrap them. Easier, too, to heal a wound with a little plausible deniability sprinkled on top. "Best I don't know."

Eurydice nods. "Alright," she says. "Well, I won't be sticking around."

"No," she says. "You fly away fast, little bird." The whistle on the train sounds; Hermes’ warning. Ain't much time left. Normally this means "Persephone, put away your flask." But today...

"You got a choice." Persephone clears her thought. "You can either ride back in the suitcase, or you can present yourself to Mr. Hermes, and ask for his mercy in your traveling. You do that, the boy will know, can track you down faster." There's a hidden downside to that, which is, of course, that Mr. Hermes will be placed in the crosshairs with Mr. Hades. But Mr. Hermes has been in such crosshairs before, and Mr. Hermes will survive just fine.

"I'd prefer to go my own," Eurydice says. "All I've ever known's been that way." And there's a sadness to Eurydice’s eyes, and she suspects it is because it is indeed not the _only_ thing she has known, but it is old, and it is familiar, and Persephone knows well enough that when one is wounded, familiar is a comfort. "Not saying I'll never go to them, but..." She swallows. Ain't ready.

Persephone, who knows an awful lot of being forced down a path despite not being ready for it, grabs Eurydice’s hand, squeezes it.

"Get back in the box," she says. "I'll leave it at the station, with the buckles undone. You wait fifteen minutes, you kick it out, and you get a ticket for anywhere you want to go." She shifts her hands into her pockets, shoves out some money for the girl. "That ought to get you anywhere and leave you a fair bit to start over with."

Eurydice nods. She does not say thank you, which Persephone thinks is right and just for she owes Persephone nothing.

"I'll use it well," Eurydice vows; she takes one last quick look at the sunlight before heading back into the darkness of Persephone's suitcase, one last time. Was a mighty trick to get the girl, even small as she is, to fit the first time, and it is harder still to get her to do so now, but they do.

"I'll raise a cup to you," Persephone says, looking down at the girl, her head tight between her knees. "I'll raise a cup, and I'll think of you." It is not quite a goodbye; it is not quite a guarantee. It is, perhaps, a promise.

The girl whispers her own goodbye: "I'll keep singing. I'll sing." And that is a promise and promise enough.

Persephone shuts the bag and manages just barely to shove the girl's weight under her seat 'fore the engine comes to a halt, and Mr. Hermes is there, hand beckoning.

"Welcome back, sister." He makes a funny face, her brother; weary but surprised, pleased. His eyes crinkle as he smiles. "Right on time, _for once."_

 _"Oh, shush, shush,_ " she says; slurs her words a bit in an act good enough to fool the god of thieves and liars both. She stumbles with the suitcase, flings it down as soon as she can with a drunken flourish. Hermes bends to pick it up, predictable, predictable _._ She snaps his hand like a nun with a ruler. "Don't bother — that's his gift, and it's _heavy_. I ain't want it yet."

"Little green thang..." Hermes whispers. "He ain't gonna like that."  
  
"What he ain’t know, he won’t mind. We'll get it later," she grouses. "Lemme—lemme see the gang first. Lemme bring some spring, Hermes, they've earned it." And Mr. Hermes smiles, for when Persephone is generous, his job is so much easier. 

He looks at the box with suspicion, but then he opens his arm. She takes it. And they walk up, her suitcase forgotten.

They go to the bars, and Persephone does her song and her dance. Drinks a couple of drinks, and draws out the drinking so it looks like she has a glass in her hand all night; she consumes less than she normally would, but she wants to keep her mind sharp. Gets right nervous as they walk back toward the station after a long night, and hopes Hermes doesn't notice the sudden tightness in her step; he is limber as can be, as spry now as he has been for thousands of years and will be for thousands more. Persephone feels the knots of worry in her belly all the same, up until the very point where they see her suitcase: kicked open, the bird has well flown the coop.

"Well," Hermes says, with a lack of suspicion. "Looks like your gift's been grifted, green thing. Odd sort of gift, though, I reckon. Some sort of bejeweled little bird?" 

She looks at him. He looks back. There’s a question in those raised brows, in the tip of that chin. Slowly, she nods. 

He whistles, thumbs his nose. "He know?" 

"Ideally, no." She snaps. "Your silence—"

"I know." He raises a hand, lets it flutter down. "Well, what he doesn't hear...Ain’t my business. Can honestly say I ain't seen anything, anyhow." Plausible deniability works for nephews as well as spouses. 

She smirks, proud of her discretion, and for a moment, they say nothing. Persephone picks up her suitcase, snaps it shut. 

"What do you want to do now?" Hermes asks.

Persephone pulls out her flask, smiles. Somewhere: there is a woman on the run to a new life. Might circle back to this one, maybe not; either way, she's got a chance, and that’s enough for now.

"Wanna toast?" Persephone asks, and Hermes chuckles, takes it from her hands, has his sip, and hands it back.

Persephone, well — she pulls a long swig, too. Might not taste as sweet as freedom, but a little moonshine ain't no sin. 

"Happy trails, songbird," she says, and she raises her cup. 


End file.
